A Tale of Three

Chapter 19: Nitor

She found herself in a cavern that made Veilded look like a fly. The ceiling was invisible, too high to see. The walls looked more like mountains circling a plain. But that wasn't the most astonishing feature. Floating around the cavern were small blue puffs of light. They slowly swam through the air, bouncing off anything they ran into. Cyrene watched them in amazement. She let out a gasp as one of them floated towards her face. They looked so beautiful. As Cyrene looked closer she saw that they looked like a bundle of white twigs, glowing blue in the middle. As the one she was looking at flew away, she let out a laugh and chased after it, swatting at its retreating shape.

"They are beautiful creatures, the Nitor," a voice admired, breaking the silence. Cyrene whipped around to see a bright blue eyed feline walking towards her. He was average sized, but nothing was average about him. He had tattoos like most of Veilded, but instead of being a glowing white his glowed as blue as the Nitor. They glowed cobalt against his midnight pelt, illuminating almost everything around him. His fur was longer than the normal feline, like the pelts of the wolves. The panther's long thick claws had blue spirals going down them, trailing to the stone.

"Who are you?" Cyrene asked, her eyes still lingering to his blue tattoos.

"I am the past. I am the future. I am the present. I watch. I remember. I am the guardian of time," the feline said hoarsely. Cyrene stood frozen, not knowing how to respond. "I am the beginning of magic. When Feluna stumbled here as a cub, I was the one to give it to her. I am the root to Veilded."

"What's your name?" Cyrene asked again. The creature rolled its eyes at her.

"Must everything have a name? Do you have to name every pebble just because it exists?" the feline asked, its voice echoing.

"I don't talk to pebbles," Cyrene remarked.

"And I don't have a name," it finished.

"Well I'm not going to call you nothing!"

"I have no name!" the feline roared, silencing all the complaints. The roar echoed off the cavern walls, making his message louder and louder. Cyrene slowly nodded her head, something willing her to do so.

"Then I shall call you Xeno, after my friend's father," Cyrene finished, hoping the glowing panther wouldn't argue with her again. She wondered how Alba would feel about her calling a glowing panther by his father's name.

"Fine," Xeno growled, not looking at her. Nodding her head in approval, Cyrene started to walk around the cave. Something caught the corner of her eye. Looking sideways she found herself looking at the side of the cavern.

Cyrene's jaw fell open. Carved into the walls were giant pictures. There were giant stone felines, snakes, and even canines. They were fighting, rising above a crowd, eating a deer, but that wasn't the most amazing part. Cyrene recognized the pictures. She could pick out the Alpha confronting her about the foam mouth wolves, Ares and her meeting Swiven, she could even find Jade in there, transformed into snake. Cyrene walked around the cavern, looking at all the pictures etched into her past.

As Cyrene walked along she noticed more pictures appear, but they weren't ones she remembered. Then she saw herself. She was sitting next to a feline's dead body, crying. She looked closer, trying to see who the body belonged to, but it was not facing her.

The pictures of her in Veilded quickly turned into things that she couldn't even imagine. There was a panthress, sitting on top of the tree looking down at dead bodies. Next to it were birds carrying the burned remains of what used to be scrolls.